evolution

Yesterday, sitting with all the intellectuals, the thinkers and the brains, my “Big Fat F” felt like I was dressed wrong more than once. However, thanks to you guys and what we’ve done together, I was able to recognize it and make it through without sautéing the shame of being who I am wired to be. See blog-post, Hear, Be Hear, Believe and Speak in Your Language.

Image by rimabek via Flickr

There are temperaments that find it easier to believe in God I think; feelers, more so than thinkers at least. But definitely not across the board. Whatever our temperament or brain health, we are all deciding what to do with the surging evidence of the evolutionary history of our world. This can translate into an all-or-none decision for the existence of God. When logic and knowledge make a seven-day creation unbelievable, than believing in God might too. When we discover the repeating themes between religions, Buddhist with Christianity with Mayan and so forth, than rather than believing in a message that is bigger than culture and Time, we might believe that there is no message. When we understand emotions and behaviors on the cellular, hormonal and related biology and draw the line even more clearly to evolutionary origins, we might nod our heads. “No God.” When we say,

Everything starts and ends with me,

and in the connections we find, discover humanism decreasing the perceived need to depend only on God, we might pull a hand back, take in breath, go silent and think,

Is this all?

Yesterday, talking about oxytocin, how it was measured and manipulated, how emotions and behaviors were measured and manipulated, I was in awe. I always am by these discussions. It amazes me over an over again that we can have this beautiful understanding about emotions and behaviors. However, there was the curtained message that there is no God. I can’t say exactly how I believe this to be true. But I do. I felt a chill and remembered, even if these things are true, doesn’t say anything about God not existing.

All these things that I use to define my reality, which of them can be really trusted? Love, Emotions, Time, biology, personality, senses, brain, essence, connections and external input, learning and knowledge, the Bible, visions and more – they don’t have to define the existence of God but for many of us they may.

So I ask you, of all the things you use to define your reality, what do you trust? Do you use them to grow your belief in God or vice versa?

Self-Care Tip – Work these questions over deliberately before these questions work you over unsuspecting.

Self-care is Christian and scientific. I have awareness of the culture that frowns on taking bad behavior out of the church and into the laboratory.

A few days ago we talked about self-care not being selfish. That circuitously brought up the question about how “the church” feels about this blog.

Confusing “the church” with Christianity can be problematic. I have confused them in the past.

When my brother started talking evolution, I felt cold and clammy suddenly. After my mini-panic attack, he told me about reading the entire works of Darwin and I had another mini-panic attack. “There’s no way evolution didn’t happen. There’s just too much evidence supporting it.” I was confused.

It took me a long time to realize that I didn’t have to be worried about differences between me, science and God. Funny that my comfort level grew with this as I realized how little I knew. In fact, my joy expanded, when I realized I would spend all eternity growing my knowledge. That is a lot of everything that just won’t fit into any box I can think of.

iwantthatpainting.com/Why-does-it-always-rain-on-me.html

Now when something crashes through a pet-paradigm, I remember that it’s ok. (Down fear! Get down anxiety! Heal dogs!) I may see a different reality. Parts of me may become changed by that knowledge, trauma, death of a dear one. Becoming changed and different is ok. Because God is the same. God already knows whatever about evolution, or that the world is round. He knows that we try to turn medical symptoms into something spiritual, like depressed mood. He knows it and He’s still here. He is the prototype of presence. Now that people can look into the brain and say where feelings and behaviors come from, we can get past that and on to the next revelation. So what if it is medicalized. Science and spirituality are not exclusive of each other.

So is self-care Christian or scientific? Things aren’t that binary. Self-care is both.

Self-Care Tip #84 – Don’t be afraid of self-care. Be a friend to yourself.